Recent progress has been made in developing systems for tympanic membrane temperature measurement. By way of background, mammalian temperature has long been of keen interest to doctors and others involved in diagnosis and treatment of patient pathologies. On the other hand, accurate temperature measurement, accomplished in a quick, non-intrusive and inexpensive manner has remained a considerable task. Measuring the temperature of the tympanic membrane of the ear has been found to provide a highly accurate body temperature reading. By collecting the infrared emissions from the tympanic membrane, an accurate temperature reading can be ascertained in an non-intrusive procedure.
As stated above, many systems have been proposed for temperature measurement based on tympanic IR emissions. Exemplary patents in this field include U.S. Pat. No. 4,895,164 to Wood, 4,797,840 to Jacob Praden, Ph.D. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,436 to Pompei, et al.; the contents of these patents are incorporated herein by reference. These systems vary in both accuracy and complexity, but in large have been found to be very useful for their intended purposes, and are now enjoying commercial popularity. Notwithstanding these past successes, a common and significant handicap resides with even the most expensive of these systems. This handicap relates to the durability of tympanic thermometers in connection with predicable wear and tear. Referring to FIG. 1, which shows a typical fragile probe 100, the most vulnerable component of such tympanic thermometers is the probe, or nose portion intended for insertion in the ear channel. The vulnerability stems from its necessary protuberance coupled with the sensitivity of several components within the probe, specifically the barrel 102, or wave guide, and the attached window 104.
Typically, dropping an infrared tympanic thermometer from a height as low as one foot can destroy the thermometer's ability to read temperatures accurately, or completely. In a fall of one foot, tympanic thermometers typically sustain bending of the barrel or IR wave guide, and/or braking of the window at the remote end 106 of the barrel 102. Broken windows constitute the primary reason for customer dissatisfaction with tympanic thermometers.
Previous designs placed a hard window on top of and covering the end 106 of the barrel 102. This exposed the window 104, with little or no protection, to damage by placing it closer to the point of impact 108 in a nose-first fall. The composition of the speculum 110, or funnel shaped portion that supports the thermal sensing components within the ear channel, further contributing to the problem of fragility. Typically the speculum is composed of non-reinforced polycarbonate that will dent at the tip 112 and cause the window 104 to break. When the speculum flexes during a drop, most of the force of the fall translates from the speculum through a solid rubber seal 114 to the barrel 102, and can cause barrel bending and subsequent thermometer inaccuracy. This seal 114 serves to prevent cleaning fluids from running down the outside of the barrel 102 and degrading the performance of the thermometer due to evaporative cooling.
Mechanical energy of a fall tends to deform the speculum 110, the barrel 102 and the window 104, in part because the front brick 116 is not directly connected to the speculum 110. Such direct connection would allow some of the energy to dissipate through the housing of the thermometer and away from the speculum 110, barrel 102, and window 104.